Read Receipt is a feature that allows us to control our privacy for activities using messaging or social media applications.
You might have noticed the read receipt feature of Instagram which allows the sender to know whether the message he sent has been read or not by the user.
When you sent any message to a user, it is shown as “sent” until the user opens the chat and reads the message. However, when the other user opens your message, it is shown as “Seen”.
You may not always want the user to know that you’ve read the message as you may sometimes not be in a situation to reply to the text, you may be willing to take some time to reply or you may not want to reply to the text in any way.
In short, you don’t want to reply to the text at the time you read the message, and at the same time, you may also not want the sender to know that you’ve read the message.
Before jumping on to the steps to Turn Off Read Receipts On Instagram, it is important for us to know whether we can turn this feature off or not.
Can You Turn Off Read Receipts On Instagram?
If you are aware of the read receipt feature in any other application like WhatsApp, you might have noticed that you can read the messages without letting the sender that you have read the message by “Turning Off The Read Receipt” on that application.
But the question is can you turn the read receipt feature on Instagram too. Well, I have the answer to your query.
Sadly, unlike WhatsApp Instagram doesn’t have the feature to turn off Read Receipt.
Do Instagram Turn Off Read Receipts
No, Instagram does not let us turn off the read receipts feature, but we can still get the features of Read Receipts indirectly with the methods as below.
But, you can still read the messages on Instagram without letting the sender know that you’ve read the message they had sent and also view the stories of the users without letting them know that you’ve viewed the stories.
How to Read Instagram Messages Without Them Knowing
As Instagram does not allow us to turn off the “Read Receipts” feature, you might be out of sorts thinking that the sender would always know that you’ve read their message.
You need not worry about that as I am here with some ways with which you can read the messages of the sender without letting them know.
There are some indirect ways to read the messages on Instagram which does not let the sender know about the status of the message sent.
In this post, I would explain the two best ways to read the message on Instagram without the sender knowing that the message has been seen by you.
Also Read, How to View Instagram Stories Without Them Knowing
Method 1: Viewing Message on the Notification Panel
The first and the most effective way of reading messages of the sender without them knowing is viewing the message from the notification panel itself.
Yes, you read it right, you can read Instagram messages from notification and the sender would still not know that you read the messages. But, the catch is that you would be able to read just 3 to 4 of the most recent messages or three to 4 lines of a message (if message is longer) from notification.
By default, the notification for direct messages is usually “ON” on Instagram. However, if it is not on and you are not able to see the messages in the notification, you should first turn it ON.
You can enable this with the steps as:
Step 1: Open the Instagram Application on your mobile.
Step 2: Go to your “Profile Section” by tapping on your Profile Icon (Your Profile picture).
Step 3: Tap on the “Hamburger Menu” (three horizontal lines).
Step 4: Select “Settings” from the menu by tapping on it.
Step 5: Click on “Notification” from the available settings.
Step 6: Select the “Messages and Calls” option under the Notification Settings.
Step 7: You can now turn off or on the notification for messages by selecting the On or Off option as shown below.
If you use a professional account you can turn the notification only for primary messages or for both by selecting the required option.
This way you would now be able to view the messages from the users without even opening the Conversation chat in the Instagram application.
Method 2: Viewing Message Disabling Internet
The other way to view the messages without letting the sender know is “Disabling the Internet Connection” of your device or turning the “Flight Mode (Airplane Mode)” ON on your mobile device.
To read the message using this method, follow these steps.
Step 1: Turn off the mobile data connection on your mobile. To ease this up, you can enable the “Flight Mode” on your device.
Step 2: Open the Instagram Application on your mobile and head over to the messages.
Step 3: Open the conversation of the user whose message you want to read without letting them know.
In this way, you can easily view the message and the sender would still not know that you’ve read the message.
But you should remember that the read receipt would not be marked as “Seen” to the sender only until your mobile data or airplane mode is off. Once the connection is back live, the read receipt would be shown as “Seen”.
Though you can’t turn the read receipts off, you can still read the messages without letting others know. In the same way, you can view the stories of users without letting them know.
I hope this article helps you out.
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